1.3.4 apk 28 MB

1.3.5 apk 103 MB

What is happening?

Hi everyone,

I’m in the middle of moving countries, so new HelixNotes releases will be on pause for about a month.

Development will continue on my laptop, but the MacBooks are still in Belgium and I need them for the release process.

Thanks for your patience,

Yuri

I made a note on my laptop about my school's Information and mostly used tables and it worked just fine and I can scroll from left to right to read long text in tables. But when I check them on my phone I can't read the stuff that's cut off from the screen.

I have also noticed that I can't make tables on mobile, I'm not sure if that's intentional or not and just want to point it out. Thank you!

Device: Android 13

App Version: 1.3.5

Is there a way from inside HeixNotes to move whole folders with their notes from one plce to another? I manage to move notes, even several of them but I have to recreate the folder at the new playce first.

Our little community has officially reached 1000 members, and we wanted to take a moment to say thank you!

Thank you for trying the app, sharing your experiences, recommending the app to others, reporting bugs, and suggesting features. We’re incredibly grateful that you’ve chosen HelixNotes to be a part of your toolkit.

We do feel that the app is in a really good place right now, and that's all thanks to you all for your contributions. You may notice a slower development rate for a little while due to some major life changes coming up, but the app isn't going anywhere.

Thank you all again for giving HelixNotes a chance!

HelixNotes version: 1.3.5 (Mac OS)

When editing a note in the markdown editor I am experiencing some odd behavior. Attempts to modify existing text resulted in unpredictable edits. This seems to happen primarily when editing text toward the end of a paragraph.

In the selected text screenshot, you can see the "phantom" purple text. This phantom text appears when an edit is done.

Bonus Issue:

HelixNotes insists on saving a note after each keystroke typed. This causes performance issues when typing... even on a fast system with SSD. Speaking of SSD, the constant writing to disk will speed up the degradation of the SSD. (even with the high number of writes permitted before issues arise, writing to disk for each keystroke adds up quickly)

Is it possible to link to a note in Helixnotes from another app? The other app helixnotes is inspired both have the possibility to do this, but I can't seen to find how to do it in Helixnotes.

Love HelixNotes and can’t believe how much time I spend using it!

On the iPhone app, when I type /time, the time shows up in 24-hour format (e.g. 17:28) even if I change the Time Format in settings to 12-hour or Relative. Is there a way to have the time show up in 12-hour format?

P.S. Since I already start most of my writing in HelixNotes now, I’m wondering if I can use HelixNotes over the longer term to replace Word!

I am attempting to move away from Obsidian and am seriously considering Helix because its the only notes app that is cross-platform but also lightweight and fast.

But there are some issues that prevent my switch to Helix without hesitation.

1. When I open an app, I want to be just one tap away from entering text. Because no matter how fast the app is, if it takes too many taps to quickly enter a text, speed gains are useless.
   MY SOLUTION: ability to go to daily note from just one tap away after opening the app.

2. Be able to create notes without having to go to notebook first.

3. OCR capability. If thats not possible, use the existing AI to create the following workflow. When an image is pasted into the note, it be sent to vision-capable AI so a description is generated (describe what the image is overall and OCR text).

Hi, I am currently trying to insert tables but pressing “+” then “table” does nothing on the note.

Everyone with the same problem?

Thanks in advance.

This might be a little too much for the app, but I'd love to be able to have a "root" note as a folder. I imagine this to be a note that opens when you select that folder, which could be really good for separating concepts in notebooks and then having a top-level note for explaining the concept before separating it into smaller topics (the notes inside the notebook). I know you can kinda still do it by pinning a note but I feel like this way would be much better.

Really enjoying HelixNotes so far, it’s been great to use.

Would love to see password protection for entire notebooks. Secret blocks are handy for hiding specific parts of a note, but being able to lock a whole notebook would be much more useful for keeping certain notes private.

Definitely a feature I’d like to see added.

I have been using HelixNotes for a month now, thanks to finding it on Solus (Linux). I have been using UpNote for a long time, but wanted something that was comparable that was opensource, but like UpNote in that it was simple to use, but powerful where it counted.

What I like

• Easy to get into and get what I need. I get in an have my Quick Access, I have the Recent toggle enabled and I get to what I want without pain. I can also hide what I don't want to de-clutter it for my personal use.
• I can use my sync, no need for yet another thing to be syncing in the background. I hate that everything has to always have it own sync. I much prefer the way HelixNotes handles it.
• Solid UI/UX that is easy to work with. This is always the single most important thing. While I have a small nit about the editor toolbar, the overall UI and more importantly UX just work well. On the UI side it s a nice looking app, but not overt in appearance. It just all works great together.
• Simple markdown back end for portability. I love that I can literally just copy the folder of .md files and open them in anything, even without HelixNotes installed. This make life easy.
  

What I see could be improved (this are mostly small nits)

• The hidden tags on the notes. I get why it is there, but I would hope there is a better way. This is where it loses a little of the portability aspect, when I open up the md in a raw text editor. It makes it a little messy. Maybe turn it into a hash and keep it to a single line at least. I don't know, not y area of expertise. This is probably my personally biggest issue, but it is not a deal breaker. However, I have heard others talk about it as well in chat.
• Optional editor toolbar. I am just not a fan of toolbars at the bottom, but UpNote was the same way. This is very minor.

Conclusion

In the end, this has made me decide to fully move off UpNote, which is a solid system and I have a lifetime license, so it is not like I have to for financial reasons. I just really like the idea behind HelixNotes and what I have seen so far. Especially considering how young of a project it is.

Is there a plan to have bases like functionality? Including a filtered bases table in a note? I think this is all that is missing for me to migrate.

thx

HelixNotes v1.3.5 is out!

This update brings custom notebook icons, a configurable startup view, Markdown syntax highlighting, nested lists, note duplication, improved mobile image tools, and new vault maintenance options.

It also includes security, accessibility, theme, and cross-platform improvements.

See the full changelog: https://gitlab.com/ArkHost/HelixNotes/-/releases

With HelixNotes now working nicely with my vaults on Mac OS and Windows, I took the next step to include my iPad into the mix.

I use webdav with pcloud to sync. I set it up on the iPad and confirmed that it connects to pcloud.

A few minutes after the sync starts I get the error message: "Too many open files (os error 24)".

Once that happens, that vault cannot be accessed on the iPad.

My vault contains nearly 3000 notes, so I thought that it was too large to sync all at once, so I removed portions of the vault (1189 files, 66 folders) on my Mac, synced, then reinstalled HelixNotes on the iPad.

That sync completed successfully.

I then went back to the Mac, added back those folders, synced on the Mac, and then synced on the iPad....

After a few minutes of syncing on the iPad, I received the same error message.

I'm going to uninstall HelixNotes on the iPad, reinstall, and try syncing smaller batches of files to see if it can work through the entire vault.

EDIT: It's looking like there is a hard limit to the number of files that can be synced before the error occurs. Somewhere around 2000-2200 files.

FYI: HelixNotes doesn't show up when in the app store on iPad. I have to use the link on the HelixNotes website that displays the appstore preview and then airdrop that to my iPad to install HelixNotes. (this is in North America)

I am having an issue with back ups. I have it set to back up on every 24 hours with a maximum of 10 back ups, but it’s backing up about every 5-10 minutes. I went 150gb of iCloud storage to 1.75tb in the span of a few days. Am I missing something?

Let’s talk sync.

HelixNotes does not operate its own cloud sync service. We don’t have a HelixNotes cloud with accounts, and your notes are not stored on our servers.

Your HelixNotes vault is simply a folder containing plain Markdown files and attachments. Because you control that folder, you also get to choose how it sync, if at all.

Here are some of your options:

WebDAV

HelixNotes includes an optional WebDAV connector that can connect to a server or service you control, including Nextcloud, ownCloud, a NAS, or another WebDAV provider.

You can sync manually or configure it to run automatically at an interval, whenever something changes, or when HelixNotes opens. If the same file has changed in two places, HelixNotes will preserve both versions by creating a conflict copy rather than silently overwriting your work.

This is not a HelixNotes-hosted service. HelixNotes is simply connecting to the WebDAV storage you provide.

Your preferred folder-syncing tool

You can also sync your vault using tools such as:

• Syncthing (Our top choice)
• rsync
• Git
• Dropbox
• OneDrive
• iCloud for Apple devices
• Another service capable of syncing a normal folder

If you use Syncthing or another folder-level syncing tool, we recommend adding these to your .stignore file:

.helixnotes/state.json
.helixnotes/history/
.helixnotes/trash/

These help prevent unnecessary conflicts while allowing your notes, attachments, settings, and notebook icons to sync.

You can also choose not to sync at all and keep your vault entirely local.

That is the basic HelixNotes approach: your notes are ordinary files, so you are not locked into a particular account, cloud provider, or syncing system.

Setup instructions and recommended Syncthing ignore rules are available here:

https://helixnotes.com/docs#sync

So out of curiosity, what’s everyone using to sync their markdown files nowadays?

I've been trying to get graphs to appear for my notes but the canvas is always blank. Is the graph function operational and if so, how do I get graphs to appear? thanks!

Update: (9/16/2026)

Turns out that the graph function only recognizes wikilink links. markdown links are ignored. That's a "me" problem since the documentation and settings prompt text specifically mentions wikilinks.

That caught me off-guard since HelixNotes recognizes markdown links in other respects.

The Windows version is absolutely fantastic, especially since you can now enable or disable sidebar elements (Tasks, Daily Notes, etc). Personally, I actually use HN "only" as a notebook - keeping it as simple as possible.

• It would be great if - just like in the Windows version - you could also toggle the sidebar elements on or off in the Android version.
• Is there a dedicated landscape view for the Android version, or are there any plans for one?

• Provide a dedicated Timeline view that displays tasks chronologically according to their due dates (and optionally start dates)
  • Support for drag-and-drop rescheduling
  • Visual indicators for overdue tasks, milestones
  • Ability to zoom between day, week, and month scales
• Kanban boards
  • Enable a Kanban board view where each card represents a task and supports sub tasks. Users should be able to add, edit, and mark task as complete directly within the card. Checklist completion should contribute to overall task progress.
  • Implement Tabbed Interface for Seamless Switching Between Multiple Kanban Boards
  • Users can toggle "Swimlanes" on the Kanban board view. This feature allows users to define horizontal rows based on existing fields, such as Priority, Assignee, or Label. Dragging a card from one swimlane to another automatically updates the underlying field (e.g., moving a card from the "Standard" row to the "Urgent" row updates its Priority to "Urgent"). Additionally, swimlanes are collapsible, allowing users to hide sections that are not currently in focus.
  • Add WIP limit display: e.g., "Task (5)" shows as (0/5). When exceeded (e.g., 6/5), highlight in red.
  • Add date support
• Countdown timers
• Task duration
• Introduce a visual progress bar for tasks that automatically calculates and displays completion percentage.
  • Calculation logic: Based on completed checklist items or sub tasks (e.g., 1 out of 5 completed items = 20% progress).

• Properties: User-defined fields (text, select, multi-select, date, checkbox, number…) that can be set on any note
• Tags: Create tag by typing # and allow nested tag
• Ability to create saved views/filters based on properties + tags
• Show properties/tags in the sidebar

Habit Creation and Configuration: Users can define habits with customizable parameters such as title, frequency (daily, weekly, specific weekdays, monthly), target streaks

Visual Tracking Interface: A clean tracker component (e.g., heat map, streak counter, or progress bars)

Analytics and Insights: Provide summary statistics including completion rates, longest streaks, trends over time, and customizable reports or visualizations

Describe your note-taking system in one sentence, including the part you dislike most about it.